Monday, October 15, 2012

Divinity in the details

In the early years of my yoga practice—really,
for the first 30 years—I did little more than assume the shapes of the poses. I
looked at what the teacher did and folded myself into the same configuration of
arms and legs. I ignored verbal instructions—too boring!

But in the past five years, I’ve started to
listen to the details and enter poses from the inside out. It’s a completely
different experience. “Widen your thighs, drop your tailbone, firm your lower
abdominals, lift your ribs, press your shoulder blades into your back …” The
simplest pose is the culmination of scores of invisible actions. And though
they’re hard to do, the details are not boring at all. They’re exciting, it
turns out!